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Title: Sweet Silver Blues
Series: Garrett, P.I.
Author: Glen Cook
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Format: Digital Edition
Series: Garrett, P.I.
Author: Glen Cook
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 320
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
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Garrett, a Private
Investigator, is hired by the Patriarch of some cobbler elves to
carry out his sons last wishes. It doesn't hurt that the son and
Garrett both served in Cantard and survived their army stint in that
region. The father reveals that his son was getting rich in
speculating on silver prices, with help from a woman in the Cantard
who is probably on the enemies side. This same woman is one that
Garrett fell in love with back in the day. So to help out an old dead
buddy and maybe see the love of his youth, Garrett agrees to go into
the Cantard and get the woman back to TunFaire where she will inherit
a small fortune.
Unfortunately, the
dead brother has a sister named Rose and Rose wants all that money
for herself. She tries to hire Garrett, seduce Garrett, threaten and
assault Garrett and eventually she is forced to team up with Garrett.
Garrett also hires the help of various people to go on this trip with
him.
Turns out the Lady
is a vampire now. Garrett and Co kill the Bloodmaster, escape with
the Lady and another vampire Garrett's coworker wants for reasons of
his own and make it back to TunFaire. The Lady is welcomed by the
cobblers as an unofficial inlaw and given the best treatment to
reverse the vampirism. Morly, Garrett's coworker uses his vampire to
destroy the local crimelord who has been making threats against
Morly.
Everyone is
relatively happy and everybody gets paid. Garrett also hooks up with
Rose's cousin so the detective fulfills the mission AND gets the
girl. Not bad.
My
Thoughts:
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Nothing brilliant with this book but it was the most fun I've had so
far this month besides with Shaman
King. Light hearted rompy fun.
Cook is obviously riffing on the Hardboiled Noir Detective thing and
if I was better versed in that genre I might be able to appreciate
this even more. As it is, a hard drinking, hard headed, hard fisted
detective living in an Urban Fantasyland works really well. I guess
this isn't strictly Urban Fantasy, as it isn't our world at all, but
it has all the earmarks of a mixed group of humans and supernatural
and a city and the goings ons that happen in cities. (the stinking,
filthy, cowflop places).
Cook still yanks his readers around with making his characters know
things that aren't revealed to us and having “things happen” very
suddenly with almost no warning. I know I missed particulars but I
just sat back and let the story roll, even if I didn't perhaps catch
all the whys & wherefores. Cook has a style that while not
exactly the same, is similar enough so an astute reader can pick up
on it from his Black
Company books or his Dread
Empire series.
I have zero interest in straight up detective fiction. Not mysteries,
but Detective Fiction. However, throw in some paranormal stuff and
bam, it really works for me. And Garrett is no whiny, crybaby, “poor
me, the Council doesn't like me” miserable sodding jackass like
some other character I can think of whose name rhymes with Harry
Dresden. I can't say that if you hate Dresden you'll like Garrett,
but if Dresden made you give up on Urban Fantasy, Garrett might be
able to punch you in the head until you admit you really DO like
Urban Fantasy now, honest sir!
As long as no pedophile wizard shows up to ruin the series like Cook
did with his last
Dread Empire book, I suspect I'll be glad to work my through
the 15+ books in this series.
★★★☆½